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We have often heard people saying the Covid-19 lockdown has provided them time to tend to their gardens.
Even if you do not have a garden in your backyard, you can actually take the major step to start one during the lockdown, as a way of occupying yourself.
Fine Gardening magazine gives tips on how to start a garden and maintain it.
Examine plants carefully before buying
The easiest way to limit disease in your garden is to avoid introducing it in the first place. Getting a disease with a new plant is not the kind of bonus that any of us wants.
One of the hardest things to learn is what a healthy plant should look like, making it difficult to know if the one you want is sick.
It is a good idea to collect a few books, magazines, and catalogues that show what a healthy specimen looks like. Don’t take home a plant with dead spots, rotted stems, or insects. These problems can easily spread to your healthy plants and are sometimes hard to get rid of once established.
In addition to checking the tops of plants, always inspect the root quality. One does not often see customers doing this in a garden center, but it should be a common sight.
Place your hand on the soil surface with the plant stem between your fingers. Gently invert the pot and shake the plant loose. You may have to tap the edge of the pot against a solid surface to loosen the roots from the pot.
Roots should be firm, usually white, and spaced all over the root-ball. Dark or mushy roots are not a good sign. Even when the tops appear healthy, it’s just a matter of time before a rotted root system kills a plant.
Use fully composted yard waste
Not all materials in a compost pile decompose at the same rate. Some materials may have degraded sufficiently to be put in the garden, while others have not.
Thorough composting generates high temperatures for extended lengths of time, which actually kill any pathogens in the material.
Infected plant debris that has not undergone this process will reintroduce potential diseases into your garden.
If you are not sure of the conditions of your compost pile, you should avoid using yard waste as mulch under sensitive plants and avoid including possibly infected debris in your pile.
Keep an eye on your bugs
Insect damage to plants is much more than cosmetic. Viruses and bacteria often can only enter a plant through some sort of opening, and bug damage provides that. Some insects actually act as a transport for viruses, spreading them from one plant to the next.
Aphids are one of the most common carriers, and thrips spread impatiens necrotic spot virus, which has become a serious problem for commercial producers over the past 10 years.
Aster yellows is a disease carried by leafhoppers and has a huge range of host plants. Insect attacks are another way to put a plant under stress, rendering it less likely to fend off disease.
Apply the correct fertiliser
You need to take care when fertilising plants since too much of any fertiliser can burn roots, reducing their ability to absorb water.
This, in turn, makes the plants more susceptible to stress from drought, cold, and heat. Plants starved for nutrients are smaller and can be badly affected by leaf spots, while a stronger plant can fight off diseases.
An over-abundance of a particular nutrient is another way to put stress on a plant.
Getting a soil test through your local extension agency will provide you with accurate information on nutrient levels in your soil. Without it, any feeding of your plants is likely to be guesswork on your part and may result in too much of one nutrient or not enough of another.
Water properly
Watering your garden is a good thing, but since many diseases need water just as much as plants do, how you go about it makes a big difference.
Many pathogens in the soil and air need water to move, grow, and reproduce. To avoid giving these diseases an environment they love, choose watering methods that limit moisture on a plant’s foliage. Soaker hoses and drip irrigation accomplish this.
If you are watering by hand, hold the leaves out of the way as you water the roots. — Fine Gardening.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter